We had made the decision to leave Boracay yesterday so even though it's a double edged sword we were sort of pleased that the weather was crappy when we left. We could have stayed here for ages but the room was just depressing, it wasn't terrible it was just too far removed from anything remotely nice, even if you sit on the porch you just face some family and a gravel courtyard.

We got a trike to the port. Paid the port fees and got on a boat back. We are heading across to Negros next which from all accounts is one of the most varied and beautiful islands. We'd woken up too late to hope to possibly make it to the island in one day so we would have to spend an evening in the biggest city on this particular island, Iloilo.

Instead of getting a bus we were charmed into getting a minivan, same price, slightly more comfortable. What we forgot to factor in is that the minivan wont go until it is full. 2 buses left (1 an hour) before the minivan was sufficiently full to leave. The journey like all our Filipino journeys was boring, it makes for good window watching but trying to watch a film or anything like that is basically out of the question, either due to lack of space, roads etc.

If I've learnt one thing from travelling (I've learnt lots) it's if you arrive somewhere in the dark with no accommodation you're in for a stressful time. This was no different. We got dropped at a massive mall and got straight into a taxi and asked him to take us to a cheap hotel. This sort of thing worked perfectly in Cambodia for example because they are used to tourists and will generally have a deal with a hotel. Here there's nothing of the sort. So the driver didn't really have a clue.

I could go into detail but all that needs to be written is we spent about 45min trying various hotels that the driver would drop us at, one didn't even answer the door. We eventually returned to that one and it did open it's door. I was wary of staying in a hotel that locks its doors at 8pm. It was expensive, but everywhere was. She said it had wifi before we paid, it didn't have wifi. I went mental. I was rude to the woman but I saved most of my ire for Charlottes rucksack when we got back in the room. When I calmed down I reasoned that I went a bit over the top and that we wanted to visit somewhere off the beaten track (Philippines) so I have to accept it wont be as easy at times. Still it's incredibly annoying paying so much for these awful places, plus the weather, long journey and scumhole cities does not help.

After this we went in search of food. The road we are on is a dual carriageway that is mainly dead, although we did find a nice little cafe place which had wifi. We stuffed our faces, I had a starter, main and dessert. Mainly because I felt bad using the wifi and sitting in there for over 2 hours. I had a Filipino adobo pizza, it was sort of like stew on a pizza, even though the base was total shit the pizza was actually class.

Normally on a Saturday night I'll be glued to the football scores but with no wifi I was made to talk to Charlotte and half watch HBO.